new (to us) fruit trees

The tags contain some information: the peach and pear are self-pollinating; the cherries are on semi-dwarf root-stock; but not much else. I'd like to geek out and know allll the details. As you can probably tell from the remainder of this post.

We got in on a friends' order with a nursery, so we'll have two bare-root apple starts coming in April:

"Dwarfs may have other problems as well. They are lessvigorous, and may become stunted and unproductive if they are stressed early inlife. With apples in particular, the wise choice is to simply avoid dwarfs. If youhave a very limited space, get a semi-dwarf and prune it when it's dormant. That'sbasically what commercial orchards do."

Funny, I just started listening to The Botany of Desire chapter on apples and had an urge to rewrite this post from the point of view of the apples–evolving to be sweet and tasty enough to entice me into planting them!